“Ask, please, Felix.”
“Very well. Your particular confidences with my step-sister shall be sacred from me. If you reveal them, you shall reveal them in your own good time.”
“When she lets me—if I may.”
“But, in this matter of our marriage—well, you know your own laws of fiançailles? If there is a father, his consent must be obtained. Shall I hazard a guess? The violoncellist——?”
“I was always afraid you might suspect.”
“Why should you be afraid? Has he been a good father to you, Fifine?”
She sighed a little.
“Pauvre petit! He was not born ever to fight a difficult world. But he is a great musician, Felix.”
“That time he came and went—you had been lending him money, I suppose?”
“He is always so poor.”